


What's Left of Me

by MilesHibernus



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Go home fandom you're drunk, I can't believe there's actually a ship name for this, I really can't believe it's "Shrinkyclicks", M/M, Porn With Plot, Pre-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Sex, Time Travel, Which will probably end differently now, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-10
Updated: 2016-05-26
Packaged: 2018-05-25 22:27:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6212611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MilesHibernus/pseuds/MilesHibernus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the midst of the experiment that's supposed to give him his chance, something happens to Steve Rogers.</p>
<p>Then again, it looks like something's happened to Bucky, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Sixty percent...seventy,” said Howard Stark, and Steve could barely make out the words. The light was blinding. The itching discomfort in his muscles where the injections had gone in suddenly spiked into pain, pain that grew overwhelming almost instantly.

Someone screamed. Steve realized it was him. Outside the chamber a flurry of frantic cries threatened to shut it down, shut down his only chance, and Steve swallowed his screams and shouted, “No! Don’t! I can do this!” and clenched his teeth, determined not to make another sound.

The pain grew—rearranged him like he was being pulled through a keyhole, and the light waxed impossibly bright, and Steve fell gratefully into unconsciousness.

* * *

When he woke up, it was pitch dark, silent, and chilly. He tried to check if he could even see his hand in front of his face but his arms were still pinned under the injector pads. He felt all right, no worse than usual; in fact his spine ached less than it normally did. But if it had worked, what was wrong?

“Doctor?” he called. “Doctor Erskine?” His voice echoed off the inside of the chamber.

No answer.

“Doc, I’m awake. Doc? Is it done? Did it work?” Nothing. Steve’s anxiety was climbing quickly towards fear. Where was everybody? There must have been fifty people in that room when the chamber closed—

Outside the chamber’s window, inches above Steve’s eye level, light fluttered on, the pale undersea light of a fluorescent lamp like they’d had at the Expo. It wasn’t bright but the contrast made his eyes sting and he squinted. “Hey, help!” Steve yelled. “Help, I’m in here, I can’t get out!” He kicked, which turned out to be a bad idea; his bare toes hit metal. “Ow, damn it!”

There was a pause that probably wasn’t as long as it felt, and then a sound like someone struggling with a rusty lock. “What the hell,” Steve’s rescuer said, and the voice made him frown; it was a man’s voice and even muffled through the wall of the chamber and with his bad ear, there was something very familiar about it. “If you’re not a recording, say something else.”

“I’m not a recording,” Steve snapped. “I’m stuck in here.” More rusty-lock noises, something brief that was probably a curse and then a brisk _snap_.

“OK, I admit I’m impressed, first of all that you managed to get stuck.” His voice went from far-away to normal as he hauled the chamber doors open. “But also that I didn’t see your car or your— _Steve?_ ”

The man standing before him was tall, a hair short of six feet; Steve could look him in the eye only because he was standing on the raised floor of the chamber. His dark hair was pulled back from his face—not slicked, but pulled back like when a girl put hers in a tail. He wore a black leather jacket, black canvas trousers tucked into black boots, and black leather gloves, and Steve would have known him anywhere. “Bucky?” he said incredulously.


	2. Chapter 2

For a long second they stared at each other and then Bucky’s face twisted. Into anger, Steve realized with a shock. Bucky threw the chamber doors apart against the protest of the hinges and lunged forward, stopping inches from Steve’s face, close enough to be kissed. “Is this where I say _Who the hell is Bucky?_ ” he asked, in a deadly calm that Steve had heard only a few times in all the years they’d known each other.

“What?” Steve asked, bewildered. “Buck, what’re you doing in—” _Brooklyn_ , he meant to say, but Bucky’s left hand shot up and seized him by the throat.

“What the fuck kind of con’re you running?” he said, still in that calm voice that meant he was furious. Furious enough to keep beating Joe Manelli even after Joe’s face was pulped, that time Joe’d caught Steve in the alley behind the grocer’s and tried to bend him over. Joe was a big guy; if Bucky hadn’t found them he’d have managed it. As it was, Steve’s good pants had been filthy by the time he’d pried Bucky off the guy.

Bucky’s hand was tight and hard on his throat but enough air made it through for Steve to say, “I don’t...Doctor Erskine...it didn’t even work!”

“What didn’t work?” Bucky asked, every word distinct.

Steve hauled in air, waiting with dread for the telltale wheeze, and said, “The serum. It was supposed to—Bucky, what are you doing here? Why aren’t you in England?”

Bucky stared at him with narrowed eyes. Steve breathed as best he could around Bucky’s hand. Abruptly, Bucky demanded, “What year is it?”

“1943,” Steve said. “Are you okay?”

“Where do we live?”

Steve recited their address rather than ask another question for Bucky to ignore. Maybe he was dreaming. Maybe the serum had driven him crazy.

“What was the last time you talked to me?”

“Outside the recruitment center,” Steve said. “You told me not to do anything stupid. And then you went dancing and stayed at your ma’s and straight to the harbor in the morning.” It wasn’t like they’d had anything left they needed to say, but Steve had still wished Bucky’d been able to stay with him. 

Bucky’s hand loosened and fell away, coming to rest on the injector that covered Steve’s chest and shoulder. “Holy cow,” he said, in exactly the same tone of voice he’d used about Howard Stark’s flying car. “We have to get you the hell out of here.”

“That’d be nice, Buck,” Steve said, trying not to sound sarcastic. “I’m a little stuck, though.” Trying to move against the injector pads got him jabbed with the huge needles and he couldn’t get a good grip on them.

Bucky made a contemptuous noise and his hand tightened and he ripped the injector away like it was made of paper. Steve tried not to gape. The rest of them followed in short order, and Bucky wasn’t just swinging them out; he’d actually broken them off.

Steve had no idea what to think. Bucky’d always been stronger than Steve—not difficult, it had to be admitted—and he’d gained some more muscle in Basic Training. But now that Steve looked, the shape of Bucky’s whole body had changed; he was much heavier in the shoulders, arms and chest than he used to be—than he’d been when Steve last saw him, less than two weeks ago. It was like a lesser version of what Erskine had claimed his serum was going to do to Steve, because Steve was damned sure that the food you got in the Army wasn’t gonna make anyone into a strongman overnight.

When all the metal pieces holding him in were lying on the floor in shambles, Steve stepped out of the chamber into his first good look at the surrounding room. It was not the large round auditorium; this looked like a storage room, maybe thirty feet square and filled with things packed in crates and draped with tarpaulins. “Bucky, what’s going on?” Steve asked, his voice appallingly small in his own ears.

Bucky said grimly, “I got no idea. But I know some people who can probably find out.”

Steve started to nod and shivered instead. His shirt and shoes were nowhere to be seen and if this place had heating at all it wasn’t doing a very good job. Bucky caught the motion, the same way he regularly managed to hear Steve coughing from the other side of Brooklyn. His jaw set for a second and he said, “Don’t freak out.”

That wasn’t in any way as reassuring as Bucky probably meant it to be. “I won’t?” Steve said.

Bucky unzipped his jacket and stripped it off. He had another layer beneath it, also black with straps that stretched across his chest and only one sleeve. Bucky’s left arm was bare, or rather it had no sleeve; instead, from the shoulder all the way down to the cuff of the glove, it was covered in metal. “Here, put this on, you’ll catch your death,” Bucky said. Steve took the jacket on pure reflex, staring at the arm. It explained why Bucky’s hand had felt so strange, but _what the fuck?_ Bucky’s face changed, to concern, and he took the jacket back and held it up. “Steve, just...stay calm. Gimme your hand. OK. Look, it should be safe in here, this one’s low on the priority list and it’s not manned, but if we run into any bad guys, you just let me handle it, OK?” Steve nodded numbly as Bucky shoved his second hand through the jacket sleeve. It was hugely too big for him, of course, the cuffs hanging inches past his fingertips and the hem most of the way to his knees. “And if I tell you to run, you goddamn well run,” Bucky finished.

“OK, Buck,” Steve said.

The hallway outside was bleak concrete, lit by more of the fluorescent lamps and lined with heavy metal doors. Each one had a label, but they didn’t say anything that made sense, just jumbles of letters and numbers. Bucky turned right and Steve went with him. It was hard to match Bucky’s stride; he didn’t walk like Steve was used to. The way he moved reminded Steve of the panther at the Zoo, smooth and controlled and menacing.

They went up two flights of stairs—there was an elevator, but Bucky refused to use it—and down a couple of long hallways to another staircase that wound around itself, the air getting warmer with every step, for long enough that Steve was panting by the time they were halfway up. Steve realized his storage room was underground only when Bucky pushed the door at the top open to reveal the sun glaring white out of a white sky and a landscape that looked like the kind of thing you saw in Westerns. It was explosively hot. A car sat nearby, and it looked strange, all sleek lines like Art Deco furniture, but Bucky headed for it, pulling keys from somewhere as he went.

Steve stepped away from the door. As soon as his foot hit dirt that hadn’t been in the shadow of the tiny hut the stairs climbed to, he yelped. Bucky turned back. “Shit,” he said. “Here.” He returned to Steve’s side in three long strides, bent, and swung Steve into his arms like a bride. 

“Bucky, put me down,” Steve protested.

“Shut up, Rogers, there’s no one to see,” Bucky said. As they approached the car it let out a weird blooping noise and its lights flashed. Steve jumped but Bucky didn’t seem concerned. The passenger door’s handle must have been hot enough to hurt, just like the ground, but Bucky pulled it open with no sign of noticing. He dropped Steve onto the seat and said, “Hold on a sec,” vanishing to the back to pull the trunk open. There were sounds of zippers and rummaging and then Bucky was holding out two wads of fabric, one red and one black. “Pick a shirt.”

Steve grabbed the red one and shook it out. It seemed to be jersey, but the fabric was softer than any jersey Steve had ever encountered. He struggled out of Bucky’s jacket and pulled the red shirt over his head while Bucky undid his leather vest to reveal yet another layer, tight black elastic that clung to him. Steve wasn’t sure why he needed so many clothes in this heat, but Bucky shrugged into the black shirt, which was exactly like the one Steve wore except for its color. He slung the vest into the back seat.

Steve waited until Bucky had gotten into the driver’s seat and started the engine before he said calmly, “Tell me where we are.”

“Nevada,” Bucky said, and put the car in gear.

“And you don’t know how I got here.”

“No.”

Steve stared at the dashboard. It was covered in dials and buttons and meters and there was a little number display that was probably a clock because while he watched it changed from 4:23 to 4:24. “What year is it?”

Bucky didn’t reply for long enough that Steve opened his mouth to try again before he said, “2016.”

“What the fuck,” Steve said flatly.

Bucky snorted. “You got me, pal.” He fiddled with something on the dashboard and more hot air started to blow from vents, and Steve figured it was at least moving so he didn’t complain.

“Where are we going?”

“Somewhere with sell coverage,” Bucky said, and shook his head without having to look to see Steve frown. “That means I need to call some people on the telephone to see if we can figure out what the hell happened to you.”

Steve took a deep breath and started rolling up one of his too-long sleeves. The air coming out of the dashboard felt a little cooler and he hoped it wasn’t his imagination. “OK. OK. So we’re working on what happened to me.” He paused. “Bucky. What the hell happened to _you?_ ”

They turned off the dirt track they’d been following onto a paved road. There were lines drawn on it to mark the lanes. Steve watched Bucky’s fingers tighten on the steering wheel. “I can’t tell you, Steve,” he said finally.

“You can tell me any—”

“I don’t mean I don’t want to tell you or it’d be hard to tell you,” Bucky said. “I can’t tell you. You’re from the past, and if you go back knowing too much about how you got here, you might change something that shouldn’t change.”

Steve sat back in his seat (the car had individual seats instead of a bench) and thought that over. Was that even how it worked? How should he know? “Well, how did you get here, then? You’re lookin’ pretty spry for a 99-year-old.”

“I slept through most of it,” Bucky said. “Like...like Buck Rogers.”

Steve couldn’t help himself. The overwhelming weirdness of the past hour or so rose up and smacked him in the face and the name, the absurd name, was the last straw. He started to chuckle and couldn’t stop, and when Bucky glanced at him he barely managed, “You can’t be Buck Rogers.”

“Yeah? Why’s that?”

“Everyone knows if we got married I’d—hah—I’d take your—”

He dissolved into helpless laughter.


	3. Chapter 3

The laughing, for once, didn't set off his lungs and eventually Steve wound down. Bucky wanted to know exactly what Steve had been doing when whatever happened had happened. He seemed to be angry about the whole thing, and the amount of detail Steve could supply didn’t help his temper; he muttered about ‘not even asking’ and ‘could have been killed’, which Steve thought was more than a little unfair. It wasn’t like he had the knowledge he’d have needed to even begin to understand what Doctor Erskine and Mr. Stark were doing, so what was the point in asking? 

They’d been driving for about forty-five minutes when something in Bucky’s pocket made a strange piercing beep. “Finally,” he muttered, and dug it out. It was a little rectangular piece of...Bakelite, maybe, or celluloid. Except Bucky tapped it rapidly with his thumb, then held it up like the earpiece of a telephone. “My name is James Buchanan Barnes, and I need to talk to Tony Stark right now,” Bucky said. He glanced at Steve, who was wondering about the tiny hesitation before he'd said his name. “Tell him it’s about Captain America.” Then he huffed. “She hung up on me,” he said. “If I haven’t heard from him in five minutes I’ll try again.”

Steve stared at Bucky’s profile, trying desperately to decide between _Tony Stark like related to Howard Stark?_ and _Is that little tiny thing a radio?_ and _What the hell’s a Captain America?_ Before he’d made up his mind, the tiny radio emitted a heavily distorted voice grinding out a phrase that was just barely recognizable as ‘I am Iron Man’. Bucky grinned and tapped the surface again. “Before you say anything, Stark, do you know where Captain America is right now?” He paused, rolled his eyes, and went on, “I don’t _want_ you to tell me. I want to know if _you_ know where he is at this second. OK, good. Steve: say hello to Mr. Stark.” He held the gadget in Steve’s direction.

Steve boggled at it, and Bucky waved it impatiently. Steve said hesitantly, “Hello, Mr. Stark.”

There was a slight pause and then a man’s voice said, “Son of a bitch. Friday, analyze this. You, guy who just said hello, recite the preamble to the Declaration of Independence.”

“What?” Steve exclaimed.

“Just do it,” Bucky said quietly.

Steve groped for the words; it had been a long time since fourth grade. “Uh…‘When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, um, and to assume among the powers of the—” 

“Son of a _bitch_ ,” said the tiny radio. “OK, I’m convinced. Also tracing this call.”

“Good, how soon can you get here? We’re about twenty-five clicks southeast of Vegas.”

“Go to the Bellagio, I’ll have a suite for you, tell the desk my name,” the man on the radio said. “Barnes. If this is a trap, I’ll kill you. You’re alive because I’m not sure.” He sounded much too serious. 

“I know,” Bucky said. “He’s real. I found him in an off-the-books hi—shield storage facility.” Then, with curious emphasis, “He’s short, Stark, and he said it’s 1943.”

“Hooo-boy,” said the voice. “Noted.” 

* * *

Tony Stark, it seemed, was Howard Stark’s son, and yes, _that_ Howard Stark. Bucky refused to tell Steve how he knew a rich industrialist or his son and wouldn’t explain who Captain America was or what he had to do with Steve—but Steve wasn’t an idiot. Bucky’d asked if Mr. Stark knew where Captain America was before telling Steve to talk, which meant that Steve _was_ Captain America. The title sounded both very silly and not at all like something that would get pinned on a guy who weighed a hundred pounds only with enough rocks in his pockets, so maybe that meant Doctor Erskine’s serum was going to work after all...assuming Steve ever got back to the experiment he’d so abruptly departed.

Of course, it also meant that Steve was still around too; Bucky wouldn’t have had to ask if Captain America were dead. Steve wondered what he looked like as a 98-year-old. 

* * *

‘The Bellagio’ was a hotel, in the same way that the War was a back-alley fistfight; it was one of a miles-long string of huge hotel-department store-casinos along a broad street Bucky referred to as the Strip. As they were approaching, Bucky said, “I know this is going to be too much, Steve. Just fake it till we’re in our room.”

Steve nodded, staring out the car window. It was too much already. Forget the car that looked like a spaceship in one of Bucky's pulp magazines, Steve was busy staring at the people. Women in dresses Steve would have blushed to see in a blue movie, just walking down the street, and only about one out of seven or eight was wearing a skirt at all; at least half the men in rough denim workman’s jeans and practically none of them in suits; billboards that seemed to be advertising burlesque shows; movie screens on the sides of buildings. None of the ladies had gloves. No one was wearing a hat.

They turned the car over to a bellboy who promised to park it for them but Bucky insisted on carrying his own bags; there were only two of them and neither was large, and Steve had the uneasy feeling that they contained everything Bucky owned besides the car itself. Then they hit the lobby of the hotel and Steve’s brain simply overloaded. He stared at the glass sculpture in the ceiling wordlessly, barely noticing Bucky’s brief interaction with the desk clerk.

The elevator had no operator, just a series of buttons. No music played. Steve accepted the rectangle of plastic that Bucky handed him without any understanding of what it was supposed to be for, though he thought distantly that Bucky had told him. His chest felt tight, his heart beat too fast, but his breathing didn’t begin to wheeze like it should have and he stood staring at the wall until the doors slid open (by themselves). The hall was just as opulent as the rest of the building.

The rectangle was somehow the key to their door. Steve went through to find himself in a single room that was larger than the whole apartment he and Bucky shared (had shared, before Bucky shipped out and Steve supposed he had too now), and since there weren’t any beds in evidence he assumed that there were more rooms somewhere, and that was when he just sat down on the floor.

“Steve, hey,” Bucky said. He crouched, his bags slung unnoticed over his shoulder. “Don’t sit down here, pal, we can—”

Steve surged forward and kissed him, his hands winding in the black fabric of Bucky’s shirt to pull him closer, and whatever else might have changed, this hadn’t; Steve focused on the familiar feeling of Bucky’s lips because otherwise he was going to fall right off the world and spiral away.

For a second it was great. Steve felt Bucky moving, but right before his hands touched Steve’s arms Bucky froze, a perfect stillness like a statue. Steve backed away, only a few inches, and opened his eyes to discover Bucky’s were already open and staring at him. Bucky looked...Steve had no idea how to describe how Bucky looked. “Buck?” he said. “Bucky, what’s wrong?”

Bucky’s gaze flicked away from Steve’s face and he swallowed. His hands drew back carefully, like he was having to think about moving them. “Don’t, Steve,” he said, and Steve would have bet that anyone else would have thought he was calm. “You don’t want...” He didn’t seem to know how to finish the sentence.

“What are you talking about?” Steve demanded. “Of course I—”

“You think you do, but you don’t know what I am,” said Bucky, still in that tone of false calm.

Steve snapped, “I don’t know because you won’t tell me.” Well, at least pissed off was better than feeling like he was about to float away on the unreality of it all.

Bucky sat back on his heels, still refusing to meet Steve’s eyes. “Yeah. So you’re gonna have to take my word for it.” His left hand clenched into a fist. “Are you hungry? We can get food, Stark can afford it.”

“ _Bucky,_ ” Steve said hotly.

“We should get food,” Bucky said. He stood and offered Steve a hand up.

Steve ignored it and got to his feet under his own power. “I’m not hungry,” he said, and marched through a door at random. It turned out to lead to a bedroom, which was nice, and Steve shut the door behind him, sat down on the bed, and clutched at his hair with both hands.


	4. Chapter 4

He’d graduated to lying on the bed staring at the ceiling by the time Bucky knocked. “Steve, there’s food.”

Steve waged a brief internal war with himself. He didn’t much want to talk to Bucky; on the other hand, Bucky would have gotten something that wouldn’t keep and if Steve didn’t eat it it would go to waste. Because Bucky could be an asshole like that. Steve sighed and sat up.

This time he bothered to notice the carpet under his feet, plush and warm and running all the way to the walls. Steve shook his head. It’d probably be easier to pretend that this was just how rich people lived instead of thinking about being in the future.

In the future. This could not be happening.

But it was, so Steve squared his shoulders and opened the door. Bucky sat in an armchair, holding a bowl of something; there were covered plates on the low table before him. “I got you ham and eggs, or a roast beef sandwich,” Bucky said without looking.

Steve took a few steps closer and the smell of the food hit him, and suddenly he was ravenous. “Ham and eggs in the middle of the afternoon?” he asked. Seemed like he’d been only half right—ham and eggs wouldn’t keep, but the sandwich would.

“It’s a thing people do now, breakfast all day,” Bucky said. Steve pulled the lid from a plate and sure enough, ham and eggs (over easy, because Bucky knew how Steve liked eggs), plus diced fried potatoes and toast. The rolled-up napkin sitting nearby turned out to contain a knife and fork. He sat on the sofa as well and balanced the plate on his knees.

The first bite of the ham was a revelation. Steve almost choked on how _good_ it was. Bucky looked up from his bowl finally with an expression of mild alarm and Steve mumbled, “This is amazing.”

Bucky’s face went distant for a second, like he was thinking, and he said slowly, “You couldn’t taste much before. The first time you had a Hershey bar, the look on your face.” He blinked like he was clearing his head and seemed to notice that Steve was staring at him, a second bite of ham halfway to his mouth. “I think that must mean it started working already,” Bucky said. “The serum.”

He said ‘serum’ in a tone that suggested it was a dirty word and Steve bristled. “What the hell’s your damn problem?” he demanded. “It’s supposed to help me. Make me stronger, not sick all the time. And from what you’re saying, it works. So why?”

Bucky’s teeth were grinding, Steve could see it even as Bucky refused to meet his eyes. “Because you didn’t _know_ it was going to work,” he said. 

“That’s why it’s called an experiment,” Steve said, forcing himself not to yell. “Someone had to be the first one. Why shouldn’t it be me? I wasn’t doing any good where—”

“ _The hell you weren’t_ ,” Bucky shouted. He dropped his bowl, which was fortunately almost empty, and shot to his feet. Steve stared up at him, speechless. Bucky took a deep breath and said more quietly, “You were supposed to stay safe, not—you were supposed to stay safe.”

“Bucky,” Steve started.

Bucky dug his right hand into his too-long hair and said, “It’s not important. Eat. Stark’ll be here soon.”

Steve wanted to argue, but he knew that look and what it meant if he didn’t back off; it was the precursor to a shouting match that would end with neither of them wanting to talk to each other for at least a day, and he didn’t think they had that luxury. He looked down at his plate and cut another piece of ham, and jerked his chin in the direction of Bucky’s fallen bowl. “You hate oatmeal,” he said.

Bucky sighed. “Yeah, but I can eat enough of it to live on.” He crouched to pick up the bowl and set it on the table. “I was...sick for a while. Not really sick, but that’s the best way to think about it. I have problems eating sometimes.”

Steve felt his eyebrows rising. Bucky was trying to lie to him, though he didn’t know about what exactly. But his stare didn’t make Bucky mumble and come clean; instead he walked over to the curtain on one wall and pushed it back, revealing a whole wall made of glass and the afternoon just beginning to slant into evening. The window had a balcony outside it, which was startling enough that Steve didn’t protest when Bucky shoved the glass door open and walked out.

After a few seconds, Steve followed. If anything it was even hotter than it had been earlier, though at least there was a breeze blowing up here. Steve had only been higher than this once in his life, when his mother took him to the Empire State Building for his sixteenth birthday. 

He leaned on the railing, chest-high stone, and looked down at the people in the street below. Bucky leaned next to him, and Steve could feel him, watching out of the corner of his eye. “What the hell happened to you, Buck?” he asked when he couldn’t stand it anymore.

Bucky didn’t answer, didn’t move for a long second, and then he said, “Nothin’ I want you to know, Steve, OK? It’s over with now.”

“Doesn’t look over to me,” Steve said. “Anymore than the Great War was over for Mr. Grosvenor around the corner, back in the trenches every time he got drunk. I can see that you don’t want to talk about it, but—”

“I don’t want to talk about it and you don’t want to hear it.”

“I can handle it,” Steve said stubbornly, and Bucky sighed.

“Yeah, but the thing is, you don’t have to,” he said. “No one should have to.”

Steve stared at his familiar profile. “You have to.” 

Finally Bucky turned to look at him, a smile quirking the corner of his mouth. “Go eat, Steve. You’re gonna need it to deal with Stark.”

Steve stared for a moment more. “Fine,” he said, and went back inside.

* * *

Steve finished the breakfast plate and made inroads on the sandwich, which was just as good. Even the remains of Bucky’s oatmeal, tried in a fit of curiosity, tasted good, and oatmeal had never really tasted like _anything_ before. 

Bucky stayed out on the balcony.

When Steve was done eating he wandered back through the bedroom he’d been...well, his ma would have said he was sulking, he knew she would’ve. The bathroom he discovered was just as huge and overdone as everything else in this place, but Steve could recognize a tap when he saw one and ran a bath. The water pressure was _spectacular_. 

He let the water run until it was scandalously deep, stripped down, and sank into the tub sighing. The smooth pale plastic it was lined with was warm already; Steve could lie perfectly flat on the bottom of it. He was pretty sure _Bucky_ would be able to lie flat in it.

The water closed over Steve’s nose and he lay in the warm silence. It was the most comfortable he could remember being in his life. Nothing ached, not even his spine. Holding his breath wasn’t making him want to cough.

Certain other parts of his body were comfortable too and when Steve started to feel the lack of air he shoved himself up to lean against the end of the tub, regarding his dick glumly. On the one hand, he’d confessed to the base chaplain last night and if he did anything about this, he’d have a sin on his soul if he died in Doctor Erskine’s experiment.

On the other hand, it didn’t look terribly likely to Steve that he was going to get back to Doctor Erskine’s experiment.

Steve reached for the tiny bar of soap.

* * *

When he was clean he dried off with a ridiculously plush towel and put his clothes back on. His pants and Bucky’s shirt, anyway, which must have been recently laundered because it smelled strongly of washing powder. Steve padded out to the bedroom door and called, “Buck, you wanna take a bath?” The water was still plenty warm and wouldn’t even be hard to top up.

From the balcony Bucky said, “No, Steve, but thanks.”

Steve went back and flipped the switch that would let the tub drain and then joined Bucky on the balcony again. Bucky was looking up into the evening sky at a bright star. Bucky glanced at Steve and opened his mouth, but then his tiny radio announced that it was Iron Man again. Bucky pulled it out of his pocket and said, “That you, Stark?”

“Yes. Stay where you are, I wanna see everybody’s hands,” said the radio.

“Wilco,” Bucky said. “Steve, put your hands on the railing.”

Steve did, staring at the star, which was growing rapidly, like a meteor that just kept getting bigger, like fireworks, and then it was close enough that he could see it was a _man_. Shaped like a man, anyway, a red-and-gold metal man that hovered on flames from its feet a few feet from the balcony, hanging in midair as casually as standing on the sidewalk. It held its hands out, the glowing circles in the centers of its palms facing them. Steve knew his mouth was literally hanging open.

Bucky said, “Steve, this is Anthony Stark. Stark—Steven Rogers, U.S. Army. Private.” He put a strange little emphasis on the last word.

The same voice that had come out of the little radio said, “Nice to meet you, Mini-Me. Now everyone go inside and sit down, and then we’ll talk.”


	5. Chapter 5

Mr. Stark (Steve assumed he was inside the metal man, a suit of armor rather than a robot) didn’t land on the balcony until Bucky and Steve were both back inside and sitting. Bucky made a point of sitting with his open hands on his knees, palm-up, and Steve was starting to get a little unhappy about the way Mr. Stark acted like Bucky was dangerous.

On the other hand, _Bucky_ acted like he was going out of his way to not be threatening, so maybe Steve should keep his big mouth shut until he had a better idea what was going on.

Mr. Stark clanked through the balcony door, his hands still pointing palm-first at the two of them; Steve might not’ve been from the future, but he knew a threat when he saw one. “OK,” Mr. Stark said. His voice still sounded like it was coming over the radio, a little tinny and flat. “What’s going on here?”

“I found him—” Bucky started.

“No. Tiny Rogers, you tell me,” Mr. Stark interrupted.

Steve sat back in his seat (the chair was just as comfortable as everything else in the future) and said, “I don’t take orders from you.”

Bucky snorted softly; Mr. Stark didn’t say anything for a second. Steve wished he could see the man’s face. “Whatever your story is, I am now a hundred percent more likely to believe it,” Mr. Stark said at last. “Private Rogers, please tell me how you got here.” 

Steve crossed his arms. “Apologize to Bucky first.”

“Aaand that’s _two_ hundred percent. Barnes, I’m sorry for interrupting you.”

“No problem,” Bucky said, with a perfectly straight face. “Steve, you really should tell him.”

Steve thought for a second, wondering how much he could safely say...but if it had been seventy years and the experiment had worked (how could it have worked when Steve was _here?_ ), it was probably not a state secret anymore. “I was in the middle of Doctor Erskine’s experiment,” he said. “It’s—it was—supposed to change me, make me stronger, not sick anymore. Except I passed out in the middle of it, and when I woke up the capsule was in a different room and I couldn’t get out. No one was there, Doctor Erskine or Mr. Stark, Howard Stark I mean, or Agent Carter or the Colonel or the nurses. Bucky found me and we drove here.”

“What were you doing right before you passed out?”

“Screaming,” Steve said dryly.

Mr. Stark sighed, a bizarre sound. “No, I mean, what were you _doing_?”

Steve raised his eyebrows. “I wasn’t doing anything. They put me in the capsule, injected me with the serum, closed the doors, and exposed me to...Doctor Erskine called them ‘vita-rays’, but that doesn’t sound like it means anything much. It hurt. I screamed and passed out.”

Mr. Stark let his hands fall to his sides. “You just let them do whatever they wanted to you.”

“Yep,” Steve said. He saw the face Bucky made, but ignored it. “They seemed to know what they were doing.”

“You’re surprised?” Bucky drawled when Mr. Stark didn’t reply right away. “You’ve met Steve, right? Tryin’ to get himself killed is what he does.”

“All right, that’s _enough_ ,” Steve snapped. He sat forward, hands on his knees. “You don’t like it, Buck, that’s your lookout, but you don’t get to stop me trying.”

“The second my goddamn back was turned, Rogers. I wasn’t even on the boat when you were signing yourself up to get exposed to fucking vita-rays.”

“I can take care of myself.”

Bucky snorted and said, “Not in my experience.”

“Like you’re doin’ so great,” Steve said hotly.

“I am just fine,” Bucky said. With a straight face even.

“Your arm’s covered in metal and you hate the only thing you can eat!” Steve yelled.

Bucky was opening his mouth to reply when Mr. Stark said mildly, “So how long’ve you two been married?”

Deadpan, Steve said, “Bucky’s better at remembering dates than I am. I always have to bring him flowers the day after our anniversary.” 

“Once he missed it by almost a week,” said Bucky, in the solemn, butter-wouldn’t-melt way that had never fooled either of their mothers for a second. “I got a box of chocolates that time.”

There was no response for a couple of seconds, but then Mr. Stark said, “OK. I can take a joke.” 

Steve had accepted the fact that he was in the future and things worked differently here, but watching Mr. Stark’s suit of armor unfold from around him so he could step out of it as casually as a man stepping off the curb to hail a taxi was something else again. To hide the fact that he was gaping, Steve concentrated on the man. 

Mr. Stark sure did look like his father, was the first thought to spring to mind. His dark hair was a little messy, probably from being covered by the helmet. (Behind him, the suit of armor was re-forming itself into a man-shape.) He had a neat, complicated goatee and a thin line of beard along his jaw, and his dark eyes were sharp and perceptive. He wore close-fitting clothes—Steve supposed you’d need to, under the armor—and he was shorter than Steve would have expected from the bulk of the suit, but his arms and chest were strong and well-muscled, like he worked at something manual. He didn’t look much like Steve expected a rich man to look.

“No one who could come up with that is going to kill me tonight,” Mr. Stark said, apparently in response to Bucky’s expression of mild surprise. “Chocolates, Barnes, seriously?”

“He’s never forgotten for long enough to need to get me jewelry,” Bucky said, but then his voice went truly serious. “Look, Stark—”

“Ah!” Mr. Stark said, holding up one hand. “We don’t want to have that conversation right now, and by we I mean me, got it? Right now we’re worrying about Tiny Rogers here.”

Bucky blew a sigh between pursed lips. “You just let me know when you wanna take your shot,” he said, low and rough.

Mr. Stark’s jaw tightened and he looked away from Bucky’s face. After a pause he said, “I’ll make that decision later. Right now we have things to do.”

Steve desperately wanted to know what they were talking about, but he had a feeling Bucky wasn’t going to tell him. Instead he said, “I don’t know what else I can say. You have the whole story.”

“I have everything _you_ know,” Mr. Stark said briskly. “ _Not_ the same thing. Rogers, gonna need you to sit still for a few minutes. Friday, scan Private Rogers here with everything we’ve got.”

“Yes, boss,” said a woman’s voice from the direction of the suit. It raised one hand toward Steve and he managed not to flinch as a beam of light flickered out of it and over him. After a second Mr. Stark looked down at his own arm and tapped what Steve had taken for a wristwatch. A small rectangle of light sprang into the air, filled with characters that moved like they were on a tickertape. Steve looked away because if he didn’t he was going to get overwhelmed again.

Mr. Stark watched his little glowing rectangle with an expression that went quickly past surprised and into incredulous. Bucky didn’t seem to be interested in interrupting him, so Steve didn’t either. The sound of the traffic in the street outside hadn’t gone down much and Steve supposed that wasn’t surprising; this was obviously the kind of place people went to have a good time after dark. He sat and listened and tried not to think.

Finally Mr. Stark sighed and looked up at Steve. “What I really need to do is get you back to my lab so I can get a better idea of what the problem is, but I can tell you this much already: when my dad set out to meddle in forces beyond the ken of mere mortals, he _did not fuck around_ ,” he said, in a tone Steve thought was supposed to sound offhand. “This emissions signature? Includes chronotons. You, my pint-sized friend, are not where you’re supposed to be. Or rather, when.”

The light playing over Steve vanished and he took that as permission to talk. “I thought we knew that already.”

Mr. Stark gave a theatrical shrug. “You could have been de-serumed and had your memory erased back to the point of the experiment. We know that’s possible for you supersoldier types.” His eyes flicked in Bucky’s direction, but Bucky wasn’t looking at him in return. “You could’ve been be a clone who was only given memories _up_ to the point of the experiment. You could’ve been...I don’t know, a shapeshifting alien who can read the mind of present-day Rogers. But: chronotons. We’re in Vegas, so I’m betting my not-inconsiderable wealth on you, Steven G. Rogers, having actually travelled through time.”


End file.
